"Well
come on, out with it," De Ville encouraged him
gently. "I'm not really as unapproachable as my
reputation suggests, you know. If there is something
wrong, then I would like to think I can help."

De
Ville smiled; an evil, twisted, leering smile.
Nevertheless, Frutterbugs found it comforting. He gave a
big, heavy sigh and shrugged.

"I
just wondered why we're doing all this?" he
said.

A
stifled gasp from the others present as they caught their
breath. All eyes were on him. Suddenly it seemed that
there wasn't a friendly face in the room, except
maybe the inscrutable features of the head of the board
himself.

De
Ville rocked forward slightly. He slowly removed his
spectacles and his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
"Why?" he repeated, sounding genuinely puzzled.
"I'm not sure that I know what you mean."

"Well,
why are we making life so difficult for everyone?"
Frutterbugs said. Again, his words were met by a deathly
silence, but it was too late to turn back now. He made a
half-hearted attempt to justify his question. "It
just seems so unproductive," he murmured softly.

A low
mutter passed around his fellow heads of department.

"Why?"
De Ville repeated once more, ponderously. His voice
sounded as old as the rocks, as dark and impenetrable as
the night. "Because," he said deliberately, but
he didn't get around to finishing his sentence. He
was lost in thought, staring down at his own reflection
on the polished table top. A slender digit tapped on the
veneer: tap, tap, tap. Then suddenly Mr De Ville looked
up.

"Gentlemen!"

He
slowly pushed his chair back and stood up. Then he bent
forward and rested his warty knuckles on the table.

"Gentlemen,
it is important to have goals," he declared.
"Every organisation must have an aim: a gameplan if
you like. Our aim is to make as much trouble for mortals
as we possibly can, and might I say it is something we do
extremely well."

"Here
here," muttered Old Jed.

"Let's
face it," De Ville continued, warming to his
argument, "anything else would be a waste of our
considerable talents. You are new to us, Mr Frutterbugs,
and relatively inexperienced. But you must realise that
the people around this table have been responsible for
some of the most calamitous events in history - the
sinking of the Titanic, the destruction of Pompeii,
Noel's House Party. How can you possibly accuse us
of being unproductive?"

"Well
yes, I appreciate what you say," Frutterbugs
ventured nervously, "but it just seems so pointless.
Take my job, for example. I spend all day causing video
recorders to seize up, toasters to burn out, microwave
ovens to go up in smoke. What for? If it's that
important then why don't we just stop them all from
working in the first place? Isn't that within our
power? Then at least we would be free to get on with
something more worthwhile."

"Oh
dear, dear me," Scarramank remarked, rather
patronisingly. "Indeed! Stop them from working in
the first place - don't be so ridiculous."

"Well
why not?" Frutterbugs retorted. "Why
couldn't we do that?"

"Well,
because it would mean altering the laws of physics,"
Scarramank answered, with a contemptuous little laugh.
"You're keen Frutterbugs, but you've got a
lot to learn."

De
Ville turned sharply on Scarramank. "Say that
again!" he barked abruptly.

"What?"
Scarramank blurted, suddenly taken aback.

"What
you just said about physics," De Ville prompted him.

Scarramank
shrugged. "All I said was that to stop all this
electrical stuff from working you would have to change
the laws of physics," he repeated. "You'd
have to prevent the electrons from flowing along the
-"

"Brilliant!
Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!" De Ville enthused,
suddenly overcome with excitement. "This one of the
best ideas we've had in centuries. Change the laws
of physics! Mr Frutterbugs, you're a genius.
You're going to go a long way in this company."

"I
was only joking," Frutterbugs mumbled. "Just
trying to make a point, that's all."

De
Ville, however, wouldn't let it go. "Quickly
everyone, take notes," he instructed. He began to
pace up and down, his leathery tail dragging along the
smooth floor. "I want light to travel in curved
lines! I want gravity thrown into reverse! I want time to
flow backwards. Oh yes! People won't know if
they're coming or going. Or even if they've
been before they got there."

"I
beg your pardon?" said Scarramank.

De
Ville ignored him and continued unrelentingly. Once he
got an idea into his head, there was no shaking it.
"This is going to be great!" he enthused.
"Just think how mixed up people are going to be -
when they think about going somewhere, then find out that
they have already gone to a different place than
they'd been thinking about going to, before they
thought about coming back - I think."

The
others looked blankly at him, but De Ville was on a roll.
He stood with his hands on his hips, eyes alive with a
million devilish schemes.

"This
is the biggie!" he thundered, his smouldering breath
igniting the table in his excitement. "Get me to a
phone, somebody. I'm going to win awards with this
one!"